


he let me go

by darlingneverland



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Darling Pan - Freeform, F/M, dark!darling pan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-03 00:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingneverland/pseuds/darlingneverland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wendy Darling no longer bears the significance of who she is; she’s the Lost Girl, the undeclared queen of Neverland, the Mother of Lost Boys, the softness behind Pan’s malice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	he let me go

**Author's Note:**

> i refuse to ever believe that peter pan is a father.

_"He let me go."_   


Months pass, and she cannot let him go—not when Neverland poisoned her spider web veins. The Lost Boys' drums beat in her chest, the rivers swim in her blood vessels, the magic lingers in her dreams. Wendy Darling no longer bears the significance of who she is; she’s _the_ Lost Girl, the undeclared queen of Neverland, the Mother of Lost Boys, the softness behind Pan’s malice.  


_He let me go. He let me go. He let me go._   


The girls in her school bloom before her eyes. Their legs lengthen, their chests bud, their mouths pucker, their eyes brighten with the knowledge of womanhood. Wendy lingers on the cusp of adulthood. Neverland stunts her growth with the magic burning through her bone marrow, and she tries to pull forth the frustration of remaining a child, of being this half-woman-half-girl, but relief seeps into her skin and she regrets wearing it so well.  


Months continue to fly past at the speed of the Pan’s shadow, and Wendy feels she’s digging her feet into Neverland’s soil, clutching at trees until her nails chip off, clenching her teeth against the idea of her growing. Bae disappears, her parents silently rejoice, and she’s moved out of the nursery with claims that she’s much too old to share a room with her brothers. Yet, every night she sneaks back and sits by the open window with a quilt wrapped around her, staring towards the second star to the right with narrowed, tired eyes.  


Days before her fifteenth birthday, she enters the nursery, a mug of hot chocolate cupped between no longer calloused palms, just as the shadow gently picks up Michael from his bed and slings him over its dark shoulder. The mug falls, and Wendy cries out a sharp “No!” as she bolts towards the shadow, who quickly clutches John and attempts to fly out the window, because Peter Pan doesn’t want her, not anymore, but she doesn’t care and she jumps up and clutches at John’s legs, screaming as they all fly out the window, the curtains fluttering behind them.  


-  


The shadow drops her in the water and doesn’t look back. It flies off with her sleeping brothers clutched in its ethereal arms, and their peaceful faces paint themselves on the back of her eyelids as she struggles to swim to the surface.  


When she finally reaches shore, spluttering and spitting out salt water, Peter Pan waits for her on the branch of a tree, except he’s not grinning that mischievous grin of his, nor does he smirk. He stares at her with eyes the color of leaves, and the intensity of daggers, and Wendy struggles not to hug her arms across her chest. Her white nightgown drips water onto the sand, and she stands on shaking knees.  


They stare at one another for minutes that drag and drag and drag, and Wendy feels the oppressing magic on Neverland settling in her bones.  


“Hello, Wendybird.” Her name slides from his lips like a curse. He remains standing on the tree branch, leaning against the rough bark with his arms crossed over his chest, and Wendy scowls back at him. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”  


Nights spent staring at the stars, his star, flash past her eyes. She glares at him and steps forward, wet hair falling forward and dripping on her face. “As if you understand anything to do with time, you silly _boy_.”  


Laughter lights up his eyes, but no laugh escapes his mouth; his lips twitch up for half a second, long enough for Wendy to notice, but not long enough for a smile to take home on his skeletal half-boy-half-man face.  


Wendy hates him.  


“Oh, I understand more than you’ll ever care to know, Darling.” Then he’s right in front of her, toothy grin just a breath away, and Wendy stumbles back and trips over the hem of her wet, sand-covered nightgown. Peter clicks his tongue, shaking his head at her, and crouches down, elbows resting on his knees, and stares at her with eyebrows pulled together and mouth twisting in a mocking imitation of concern. “Did the Wendybird hurt her wings?”  


Wendy crawls back using her elbows. She glares at him, teeth bared and hands in fist, and she tries to sit up, only to continue to fall back down. “Stop calling me that, you pathetic little boy.” She hisses in pain when he shoves one of her legs, and she falls, and then he’s leaning over her, a knee settled between her nightgown covered legs, and arms caging her thin figure. She shoves against his chest. “Get off. Get off _now_!”  


He clicks his tongue once more, and a calloused hand settles in her drying blonde curls. “Fathers help Mothers when they’re hurt, don’t they?” He smirks down at her, twirling a curl round one of his long, bone-thin fingers. “That’s what you wanted once upon a time, isn’t it? To have me treat you as mothers and fathers treat one another?”  


Wendy spits in his face, right at his benevolent boy eyes, and when he screams in pain and leans back, she pushes him away and fumbles to stand. She screeches as he wipes his eyes, and then straddles his torso, grabbing his arms and pinning them above his head.  


“Where’re my brothers?” she yells, twisting the skin around his wrists till she knows they burn bright red. Beneath her, Peter smiles and never allows an ounce of pain to register on his ecstatic face. “What have you done to them, you monster? Tell me. Tell me now or I’ll—“  


“You’ll what?” he breathes, staring up at her with eyes like melted chocolate. “Tell me, Wendybird. You’ll kill me? You’ll make me grow up? You’ll take away magic?” Water drips from her hair onto his face. Peter ignores it, and his smile grows brighter than the Neverland sun. “Look at you. Hardly a few minutes back, and you’ve returned to your savage Lost Girl ways.” Then he’s gone, there’s nothing but air and sand beneath her, and when she looks up, she’s alone on the beach once more.  


-  


Neverland never changed. The trees bend the same, the wind blows leaves in the same direction, the mermaids swim in lakes and beckon her with smiles, the Lost Boys’ laughter echoes across the bitter island.  


Wendy’s feet bleed when she walks through the forest with expertise. She ignores the pain, though she winces when stones and twigs crush against her wounds, and continues to search for the camp. Either Peter keeps her brothers amongst the Lost Boys or he hides them in the cages she’s seen only a handful of times. The memory simmers somewhere in the corner of her mind, not strong enough to conjure a clear picture, but enough that she knows what to look for. Neverland is huge. If Peter doesn’t look for her ( _but he will, he always does_ ) she’ll have enough time to cross its entirety and find her brothers.  


Days pass. She sleeps beneath trees, she sleeps amongst leaves, she sleeps with mud caked in her nails and hair. Dirt stains her nightgown, and eventually she rips the hem up to her knees for easier navigation and uses the ripped fabric as a pillow during the night.  


When she comes across the camp, night just begins to cloud over the island. The Lost Boys dance around the fire to the tune of Peter’s pipes that Wendy pretends not to hear. She hides behind a bush, blue eyes skirting round the camp till she catches sight of Michael and John tied against a large tree with Peter only a few feet away playing his pipes with ease. His greedy, hungry eyes look not at the boys he’s stolen, but rather straight at her. They pierce through the foliage, meeting the rage in her sea eyes, and she remains hidden.  


Finally, he sets down the pipes. He waves to the Lost Boys, and they stop their dance and stare at their leader with submission pulling at their limbs. John and Michael look up at him. Peter grins, spreads his arms out wide. “Come out; come out, Wendybird. The boys sure have missed their mother, haven’t they?”  


Everyone freezes. Time drags, time lags, time hisses until Wendy parts the bush and steps out into the camp, leaves in her frizzy hair and dirt on her exposed, bony knees. The Lost Boys gasp. John and Michael stare at her with wide, horrified eyes.  


And Peter—Peter stares at her with a Cheshire grin that promises destruction to come.  


Wendy scowls. “Let them go, Peter.” She tilts her chin up. “They’re of no use to you. They don’t have the heart of the truest believer, nor are they lost.”  


“No,” Peter drawls out, and his smile is a dagger biting at her skin. “But…they’re important to you, aren’t they? I’ve just been keeping them safe.”  


“Peter,” she breathes, hands open at her sides, eyes pleading. “Please. We just want to go home.”  


Peter laughs. He looks at the Lost Boys, and they join his laughter, until he stops suddenly and turns back to her, no longer smiling. “No, Wendy. No.” He wanders towards her brothers and rests a hand on tiny Michael’s shoulder. “ _You_ want to go back. _You_ want to grow up and be an _adult_ ,” he hisses the word like poison, “and do adult things. You’ve never asked your darling brothers what they want.”  


“Neither have you.”  


Everyone stops breathing at her words, and she looks back at Peter, quiet defiance swimming in her eyes. Peter tilts his head to the side in boyish curiosity, regarding her with dark, almost pupil-less eyes ( _like the devil, her mother would say_ ), and then he pulls a dagger from his belt and holds it at the rope tying her brothers.  


“Make me a promise,” he says almost gently, almost pleadingly. “Stay forever, Wendybird. Never grow up, and stay forever and I shall let your brothers go home to grow as they please.” The words _be mine_ pass silently between the distance stretching across them.  


Wendy looks at Michael, with his battered brown hair and tear glazed eyes, and then at John with his skewed glasses and long limbs. She stares until their faces tattoo onto the back of her eyelids for all eternity. Neverland’s magic buzzes in the air, buzzes in her veins, buzzes in her bones, and she looks back at Peter Pan. She nods.  


Peter smirks before cutting away the ropes. His shadow collects her brothers right that second, and then they’re gone, and she feels eternity pulsing with her heart.


End file.
